Geographical Implications of Brazil’s Emerging Green Hydrogen Sector

Abstract

C exportable green hydrogen for industrial use and power generation has become a leading technology in decarbonization processes. Electrolyzers powered by hydro, solar, or wind split water into hydrogen and oxygen, providing "energy storage in chemical bonds" (Luna et al., , p. ). Green hydrogen is powered by renewable or green sources, unlike gray hydrogen, which comes from natural gas, brown hydrogen from coal, and blue hydrogen from natural gas with CO capture and storage. e electrochemical process for spli ing water through electrolyzers has been known for several decades, but the industrial scale-up is occurring rapidly. Described as "bottling renewables" (Nature Energy, , p. ), electrolyzers are critical to net-zero emissions energy systems that would rely on green hydrogen to generate electricity or supply byproducts such as ammonia or methane (Davis et al., ; Saeedmanesh et al., ; Ajanovic & Haas, ; Gri ths et al., ). Proponents of green hydrogen make three assumptions, apart from economic and technical viability: ( ) cheap or excess renewable power supply will exceed demand over extended periods (Glenk & Reichelstein, ; Nadaleti et al., ; Yan et al., ); ( ) ba ery technology the destination for lithium extracted from the salares of Argentina, Bolivia, and Chile (Dorn & Ruiz Peyr, ) will be insu cient to store electricity (Ajanovic & Haas, ) and relies on a narrow mineral base (Apostolou & Enevoldsen, ); and ( ) green hydrogen would not strand fossil fuel assets, but rather would use oil and gas pipelines and storage capacity (Ajanovic & Haas, ; Schmidt et al., ; Luna et al., ), even leading to green electrofuels (Apostolou & Enevoldsen, ; Dawood et al., ), commodity chemicals (Haegel et al., ), and ethylene oxide,

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